Senso
Directed by:
Luchino ViscontiCast:
Alida Valli, Farley Granger, Rina Morelli, Christian Marquand, Sergio Fantoni, Massimo Girotti, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Ernst Nadherny, Mimmo Palmara (more)Plots(1)
Venice. 1866. After a night walking the empty streets of the ancient city together, a countess (Valli, The Third Man) falls in love with an Austrian officer (Granger, Strangers on a Train) and becomes his mistress. War breaks out and separates them until she eventually finds him again in the throes of battle against the Italians. A typically lush and romantic epic from Luchino Visconti, director of The Leopard. (StudioCanal UK)
(more)Reviews (3)
A tasteful romance set against the backdrop of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. The opening is a nicely-defined melodrama set in an auditorium during a reprise of Verdi's "The Troubadour." At times as moving as Angelique, at times more dramatic than Dishonored. A lavish experience.
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The Italian baroness and the Austrian officer are attracted to each other by more than just the natural love of a man in a well-fitting uniform with gold insignia for a woman with a magnificent wardrobe (and gold coins in a chest). They are drawn to each other, whether they want to or not, by the affinity of fate of their own social group. Just as they cannot resist love, they cannot resist the inevitable fate of their own class, which slowly but surely (and sometimes headlong and tragically) walks towards the graveyard of history in times of victory of popular national revolutions. It was either about denying their love and thus denying themselves, or staying in it until the bitter end.
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I simply have a problem with Visconti. His films are interesting, they contain strong emotions, but that doesn't change the fact that they fail to immerse me and simply don't entertain me. Alida Valli is brilliant, the emotions literally emanate from her, and her destruction is wonderfully captured, but in the end, it just didn't grab me.
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